'Tis a fine thing to smart for one's duty; even in the
pangs of it there is contentment.

*

We all suffer ourselves to be too much concerned about a
little poverty; but such considerations should not move us
in the choice of that which is to be the business and
justification of so great a portion of our lives and like
the missionary, the patriot, or the philosopher, we should
all choose that poor and brave career in which we can do
the most and best for mankind.

*

The salary in any business under heaven is not the only,
nor indeed the first, question. That you should continue
to exist is a matter for your own consideration; but that
your business should be first honest, and second useful,
are points in which honour and morality are concerned.

*

There is only one wish realisable on the earth; only one
thing that can be perfectly attained: Death. And from a
variety of circumstances we have no one to tell us whether
it be worth attaining.

A strange picture we make on our way to our chimaeras,
ceaselessly marching, grudging ourselves the time for rest;
indefatigable, adventurous pioneers. It is true that we
shall never reach the goal; it is even more than probable
that there is no such place; and if we lived for centuries
and were endowed with the powers of a god, we should find
ourselves not much nearer what we wanted at the end. O
toiling hands of mortals! O unwearied feet, travelling ye
know not whither! Soon, soon, it seems to you,' you must
come forth on some conspicuous hilltop, and but a little
way further, against the setting sun, descry the spires of
El Dorado. Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to
travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the
true success is to labour.

*

A man who must separate himself from his neighbours' habits
in order to be happy, is in much the same case with one who
requires to take opium for the same purpose. What we want
to see is one who can breast into the world, do a man's
work, and still preserve his first and pure enjoyment
of existence.

There is apt to be something unmanly, something almost
dastardly, in a life that does not move with dash and
freedom, and that fears the bracing contact of the world.

*

You cannot run away from a weakness; you must some time
fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and
where you stand?

*

Life as a matter of fact, partakes largely of the nature of
tragedy. The gospel according to Whitman, even if it be
not so logical, has this advantage over the gospel
according to Pangloss, that it does not utterly disregard
the existence of temporal evil. Whitman accepts the fact
of disease and wretchedness like an honest man; and instead
of trying to qualify it in the interest of his optimism,
sets himself to spur people up to be helpful.

*

Indeed, I believe this is the lesson; if it is for fame
that men do brave actions, they are only silly fellows
after all.

*

To avoid an occasion for our virtues is a worse degree of
failure than to push forward pluckily and make a fall. It
is lawful to pray God that we be not led into temptation;
but not lawful to skulk from those that come to us.

*

To be honest, to be kind--to earn a little and to spend a
little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for
his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary and
not to be embittered, to keep a few friends, but these
without capitulation--above all, on the same grim
conditions, to keep friends with himself--here is a task
for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.

*

As we dwell, we living things, in our isle of terror and
under the imminent hand of death, God forbid it should
be man the erected, the reasoner, the wise in his own
eyes'--God forbid it should be man that wearies in welldoing,
that despairs of unrewarded effort, or utters the language
of complaint. Let it be enough for faith, that the whole
creation groans in mortal frailty, strives with
unconquerable constancy: surely not all in vain.